Defesanet 05 Outubro 2005
Engineering News 30 Setembro 2005

Value for Brazilian Air Force contract
with Denel revealed

Keith Campbell

Pretoria - South Africa - The Brazilian Air Force (FAB) has revealed the value of the contract it has entered into with South African State-owned defence industrial group Denel for services in support of its final test campaign for an indigenous air-to-air missile (AAM).

The contract is worth $2 969 000.

Denel is providing, in the words of the extract of an official FAB document released to the public, “services related to the flights of the Skua high-speed target system for tests of the Brazilian MAA-1A air-to-air missile system”.

The officially-stated reason for the contract is to “analyse the operational envelope” of the MAA-1A.

Interestingly, the document is entitled ‘Dispensing with Tender No 5/2005’.
It is not uncommon for armed forces around the world to acquire systems and services without tendering; they seek the best and most appropriate systems that they can afford, not the cheapest.

Clearly, the Brazilians saw Denel’s Skua system as the best for their requirements.

The authority requesting that Denel be contracted is stated to be the director-general of the FAB’s Department of Research and Development, and the authority which ratified the deal was the commander (chief) of the Air Force.

The MAA-1 is a short-range infrared (IR) homing ‘dog-fighting’ weapon which had previously been tested against flare targets suspended from parachutes.
Preproduction-series MAA-1 missiles have been certified for use by the FAB after a test campaign using such targets during April and May 2003.

Thanks to Denel, it will now be subjected to a far more realistic test campaign using flare targets towed behind the high-speed Skua drones.

Described as the first truly national Brazilian AAM, the MAA-1A is officially named the Piranha; it has a mass of 89 kg, a length of 2,75 m, a diameter of 152 mm and a wing span (across the rear fins) of 660 mm.

The Piranha programme can be dated back to 1976, when preliminary studies were started in Brazil for an IR homing AAM to replace the early-model US Sidewinders then in FAB service.

Classified top secret until 1980, the programme’s existence was revealed in 1981, but development was slow, with responsibility for the project being passed around various branches of the FAB, the armed forces and Brazilian industry – all these problems being rooted in a lack of funding.

Finally, in 1993, the FAB contracted a new private-sector company, Mectron (founded in 1991), to take over and complete development of the missile.

Such had been the development in IR-homing AAMs since the project had been launched that the original concept for the missile was completely obsolete, and it seems that Mectron effectively relaunched the project, with a new updated design.

First test launches of prototypes reportedly took place in 1995, followed by further test campaigns in 1996 and 1998, then by integration trials on the FAB’s US-designed and -built Northrop F-5E fighters (which use wing-tip launch rails for IR AAMs; as the US would not release requisite aerodynamic data to Brazil, this process had to be done from scratch, starting with wind-tunnel tests, further delaying the programme) and, subsequently, the operational test campaigns of 2002 and 2003.

Interestingly, a nonofficial Brazilian source claims that, at one period during the test programme, prototype Piranhas were fitted with Denel IR seeker heads; it also suggests that Denel provided technical assistance and expertise to Mectron, helping the latter to develop the ‘all-aspect’ IR seeker-head needed to make the MAA-1A a credible and modern weapon.

By way of comparison, South Africa launched its indigenous IR-homing AAM programme in 1965, leading to the first genuinely South African missile, the V3A, which entered production in 1973, but which was not a success and only a few were made; the first successful South African AAM was the V3B, which was produced from 1979 to 1985 and was succeeded by the current Darter family of missiles.

So Brazil, free of the peculiar pressures to which South Africa was subjected in the apartheid era, has taken about twice as long as this country in developing an operational IR-homing AAM.

But all tests of the MAA-1 to date have been flown against flare targets suspended from parachutes dropped by helicopters.

Now, thanks to the contract with Denel, the missile will be subjected to much more realistic operational tests.